Q: Messy small wars, with no clearly defined armies or fighting forces?

A: That’s exactly it. The persistent, nagging small wars that occupy the world. The most likely mission, not the most high-end mission, the one that we see every single day is the really difficult, hard to predict, nasty business of what’s going on globally.

Q: What about sea-based operations, ship-to-shore movement? Is that still relevant to the Marine Corps?

A: It’s more relevant today than it ever has been. If something bad happens around the world, you may not have access to airports. The only way you may be able to come in is by the sea. And we are less and less welcome to come ashore on even our allies’ lands and build bases or occupy land on their sovereign soil. Because of the Internet, they can see pictures of U.S. forces on their land. Some like it, some don’t. You can operate from sea with a very small footprint, stepping lightly on your friends. You can come in, train with your allies, and it becomes almost transparent to the population.

Operating from a sea base is the way to go. What we need are more ships.

Q: What’s it been like to be the first aviator commandant?

A: About once a month somebody will remind me of it, mostly in a good way. I try not to focus on it. I grew up flying airplanes, but I’m a Marine. That’s my focus. It’s on the entire Marine Air-Ground Task Force and the ground side of the Corps. Because they’re out there at the pointy end of this thing. They have the burden of this war on their shoulders.

Probably the hardest part for me has been the exposure to criticism, sitting in the hot seat and just knowing that hey, you’re responsible for this. Some decisions are harder than others. (Honoring) the Montford Point Marines, that was an easy decision. That was the right thing to do. Intuitively you just know it. The matter of what are we going to do with women in infantry, that’s a hard decision.

A lot of it deals with things forced upon the services by law. Some in the retired community will go, “what did you expect as an aviator, he just caves!” There are people out there still smarting over Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Well, it became law, and we have to follow it. I actually was the only service chief that recommended against it. Not because of anything personal, but because of what the Marines said.

Q: For us journalists, we were waiting for the barracks riots or whatever was supposedly going to happen. What was the key to implementation?

A: As soon as that law changed, I mean immediately, I got the leadership of the Marine Corps together and said OK, I want everybody after this thing. We’re not going to do, “woe is me; this is horrible.” We talked about it publicly. We talked about it among the commanders and the senior enlisted, and we set the standards on what’s not going to be tolerated. And you know what, it just went away. I’m damn proud of the Marine Corps.